Half Marathon Training Day 17 and A Garden Update

So you know how right before a big event you have planned how you just don’t feel like doing anything? That’s definitely what I’ve had going on today. It was also one of those days where you realize it’s already 2:00 pm and you really haven’t done anything all day…

Well, I suppose that’s actually kind of a lie though. I did run this morning (although I did a lot of procrastinating before hand) and I also did a pretty decent amount of work in the garden after my run, so I suppose I did do something. Haha I guess it just doesn’t feel like a lot after sitting around for most of the afternoon. I don’t know, I’m just in a weird mood at this exact moment I guess.

But anyways, my run did actually go pretty well! Especially considering that I didn’t get it done until after 9 am and it was getting pretty hot out haha. So the game plan for today’s workout was to warm up for a mile and then do 5 minutes of hard running, 1:30 minutes of rest, repeat 3 more times, then cool down with another mile. And I mostly accomplished that haha. I mean, I did everything but the last mile to cool down. At that point it was super hot, I tired, drained, and felt like it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to skip that last mile. Especially since I did all of the hard stuff, anyway. 😉

Nimrod is a great album to run to! Especially if you’re a pissed off at someone haha.

So even though I did skip that last mile I’m quite happy with how this workout went! Since the half marathon I’m training for has some pretty killer hills, I decided to push it just a little bit up the hills. I’m going to be ready to tackle those crazy rolling hills come November!! Haha but anyway, I didn’t do anything too crazy or intentionally seek out the bigger hills in my neighborhood, but I did tell myself to “run strong” up the hills I did encounter, instead of slowing down because it was hard and hot and uncomfortable. I’m quite proud of myself for handling the hills the way I did today. 🙂

After inspecting my Fenix 5 and Garmin Connect, it would appear that I’m doing something right at the moment! According to my fancy Fenix (seriously though, all of the feedback you get from this thing is pretty impressive!) my training load is currently optimal! Yay!! And according to Garmin Connect (and my Fenix, I suppose) my run today should improve my anaerobic fitness and my VO2 max! Pretty exciting stuff!!

Hahaha honestly at this point I’m not sure what I should be doing with all of this information. But I have a feeling that just maybe I can use it to start training more effectively and efficiently. I mean, following training plan is one thing, but knowing if you’re working too much, just enough, or not enough kinda takes things to a whole new level!

So I’m very pleased with how my run went this morning. I’m also very pleased with how my garden is doing!! I’m still a bit upset that my zucchini plants have died and my lettuce went to seed and is now all just weird stalk-y things (but hopefully that means I won’t actually have to plant lettuce next year, it’ll just start growing all by itself), but everything is doing quite well!! Especially my tomatoes. One could possibly argue that they’re doing a little bit too well. The plants got quite big and we didn’t space them out enough, so the bigger, stronger plants are killing a few of the weaker plants… It’s not really that bad though. I mean, I’m still getting a piss ton of tomatoes every day, so I pulled out two of the plants that were dying this morning. So now my bigger stronger plants wont have to fight for water/nutrients anymore, and hopefully that means they’ll produce even more tomatoes! Hahaha not that I need more or anything though.

This is everything I picked this morning. There are 18 tomatoes there. I definitely don’t have a shortage of those!

The bigger watermelon that I had growing split a little bit before it was ripe because of all the rain we had gotten on Sunday. Sad face…I gave it to the rabbits though and they seemed to enjoy it! They ate the whole thing, rind and all! There’s still a smaller one (although it’s getting a little bit bigger everyday!) out there that’s doing really well, so hopefully that one will be able to grow, ripen, and be able to be picked before we get another day full of rain. And as you can see in the photo above, I’ve also got some good looking cucumbers and a few banana peppers as well! I think We’ve got enough cucumbers to make another jar of pickles! We’re definitely not going to have as many cucumbers/pickles as we did last year. Then we had 3 or 4 cucumber plants, now we only have one. But we’ve already got 5 jars of pickles made and growing season isn’t over yet! So it’s not like we’re suffering there either haha.

I think last year our garden definitely did a little better, but we also didn’t leave it unattended for 10 days last year…Plus everyone has an off year, but all in all I’m still quite happy with what we’ve got going on. I mean, I’ve got over 30 tomatoes sitting on my counter right now haha! Luke definitely need to get to canning them! 😉

So yeah, gardening and running. That’s what my day has consisted of. Other than that I can’t really tell you what else I’ve done, because honestly even I’m not entirely sure haha.

This evening Luke and I are going to drive 30 minutes to go grocery shopping when he gets home from work. We had planned on getting that done yesterday and drove to the Aldi that’s 15 minutes from our house, but it turns out that they’ve closed for remodeling. So we tried to shop at Walmart, but that didn’t go well. First off, their produce is super expensive! And second off, we just didn’t know what else to get. Obviously they didn’t have the usually stuff we would get at Aldi and it just seemed like everything else was just boxed/frozen stuff that wasn’t all that great for you. I mean, I’m sure they have better options if you know what you’re looking for, but we did not. Hahaha it’s been quite a while since we’ve grocery shopped at Walmart…

So long story short, we ended up getting cherries, potatoes, bananas, and dinner for last night before we gave up and decided to go to the other Aldi tonight.

Green Day shirt of the Day! 😉 Haha I get a lot of weird looks when I wear this one, because I have one of those skulls tattooed on my shoulder (but in black because white wouldn’t have worked well haha).

So yeah, that’s what’s going on with me. What’s going on with you? 🙂 I hope everyone is having a good Tuesday!!

6 thoughts on “Half Marathon Training Day 17 and A Garden Update”

Nice garden bounty! I’ve been awash in green beans and cucumbers for a while but just started getting some tomatoes. My spinach and cilantro both went to seed too. I’m thinking of planting more to try and get another harvest before it gets cold out.

Thanks!! I’m thinking of doing the same with some broccoli! Broccoli tends to do better in cooler weather anyway, so I’m thinking maybe later this month or early next month I’m going to plant some more and see how it does!

That’s the nice thing about broccoli, it tends to enjoy cooler weather. Lol now it only tomatoes and zucchini were the same! That would be nice. 🙂 Haha My brussle sprout plants are still hanging on pretty well, so I’m hoping that I’ll be able to keep them alive throughout the remainder of the warm weather and then maybe I’ll actually get some brussle sprouts once it get colder! But for now, my rabbits enjoy eating the leafs from the plants. 🙂